1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to meat processing and, more particularly, to an improved method and apparatus for cutting animal carcasses into smaller segments.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has been estimated that the beef processing industry suffers from over 10 billion dollars a year in efficiencies, with 3-4 billion dollars of that waste arising in the slaughter houses and packing plants. In a conventional packing house operation, animals are slaughtered, their hides are removed, and the resultant dressed carcass is hung in a storage cooler for subsequent cutting. During the cutting operation, the carcass is manually segmented by skilled workers into primary cuts. For instance, the primary cuts of beef are the shank, the round, the rump, the sirloin, the loin, the flank, the rib, the chuck, the plate, the brisket, and the shoulder. These primary cuts are then further cut and trimmed for sale to consumers. This primary cutting operation is time consuming and labor intensive, requiring a number of highly skilled butchers to manually segment each carcass.
On any particular day, the manner in which the primary cuts are made will vary depending upon the selling price that day for each primary cut. For example, the price of a loin or shoulder cut might vary a few cents per pound per day. When the price of a loin cut is high, the primary cut is positioned to maximize the weight of the loin. However, when the price of a shoulder cut is high, the primary cut is positioned to maximize the weight of the shoulder. Although the cuts made by the butchers are not consistently accurate to produce the most effective yield, because carcasses vary in size and build, and because primal cuts are not defined by any precise symmetry, no automated butchering system exhibits more accuracy than butchers.
Although automated butchering systems do not segment carcasses as accurately as their human counterparts, a packing house may, nonetheless, use automated butchering systems to prevent backlog and to streamline their operations. Different automated butchering systems require varying amounts of human interaction. Several automated butchering systems have been developed wherein knives and other cutting implements, mechanically controlled by an operator or machine, segment a carcass as it moves along a conveyor belt. Although cutting systems of this type have, to some extent, decreased the total man-hours required by skilled butchers, the greater accuracy achieved by the manual cut has been sacrificed. The accuracy of the cut is degraded due to the limited maneuverability of motor driven knives. Moreover, motor driven knives require frequent replacement, especially when required to cut through bone as well as chilled or frozen fresh.
Other cutting implements have been used to process animals for food. For instance, high-pressure water jets have been used to cut fish bodies into sections. Unlike knives which must be replaced or sharpened and, thus, directly cause down time for the automated butchering system, water jets can cut continuously. Moreover, when coupled to a multi-axis control arm, the water jets display greater accuracy and maneuverability than motor driven knives. Unfortunately, while the water jets perform quite well when cutting fish bodies, water jets have difficulty cutting denser flesh, and water jets cannot efficiently cut bone.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least minimizing, one or more of the problems set forth above.